Sandals Barbados

TLDR AT BOTTOM. We decided to visit sandals Barbados for my family members 50th birthday. We paid a hefty price for the stay, and boy was I disappointed. Lets start from the beginning. We arrived at the resort late at night and there was a single person working the front desk. That was fine, he checked us in and the other couple that was there, asked if we had been to a sandals before, we replied no. We then had to wait 45 minutes for one person to take the couples bags and escort them to their room and the front desk worker to escort us. After 14 hours of travel, the last thing i want to do is sit in the tropical heat and wait. No AC (I was in jeans for traveling), empty fridges, and a slowly soaking t-shirt from the humidity. The room we showed up to was locked at 70 degrees and wouldn't go any lower. The escort showed us how to turn the privacy light on and off and when asked if we could get it turned down he said they would be able to handle it tomorrow. Awesome, I thought, but there was nothing on how to make that actually happen and so it never did. We then went to one of the 2 places that were open at 11pm. There were 4 people ahead of us on orders and It took 45 minutes to get some fried from frozen food. Island time was apparently super real and in full swing. The next day I finally got to see the resort. It was beautiful, not going to lie. The pools, landscaping, the cleanliness of everything was Immaculate, except for the bowling alley, lovers lane which I will talk about later. But a pristine pool and well trimmed grass only gets you so far. Breakfast, which was a wellness bowl and a juice, took another 35 minutes. This isn't a complicated order, it requires no cooking and just portioning, once again 5-6 orders were ahead of me but for 2 people working that should have been much quicker even at a leisurely pace. Dinner that night was at the butches steakhouse. Their "nice" steak house. I ordered the red snapper, because I wanted to experience the seafood in the Caribbean. The 3 oz portion had a lightly cooked outside and to my complete surprise was 100% raw on the inside. I'm not opposed to eating raw fish, but this wasn't supposed to be raw at all, this was supposed to be cooked. So I sent it back, this is supposed to be a nice steakhouse at a premium all inclusive. As such it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, it's fish and a small portion. Nope, I waited 45 minutes for a small section of fish. I could have walked back into the kitchen, scrubbed my hands and arms, thrown on a uniform, covered both my hair and beard, prepped my station and ingredients, found the ingredients, and cooked the whole thing in less time than it took. Plus the dish i was served was well below average, but hey the second time at least it was cooked. Breakfast the second day was decent, I was served a Denny's quality fruit platter with cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, sour (underripe) pineapple and a pretty good kiwi. The main course, French toast, took about 45 minutes and was pretty good. It's hard to mess up a thick cut brioche with some decent quality syrup. But once again, I could have walked my 4 year old nephew through the whole process in half the time. I got into a rhythm though, get wherever you wanted to go way earlier, bring a book because you will 100% be waiting for much long than you think, and expect 1/2 the stuff to be wrong or a disappointment. We went to Soy for dinner that night, at least every thing tasted and was cooked as it should be. Dinner did take a solid 2 hours though and we didn't order desert because we all just wanted to leave after waiting over an hour for sushi. The next morning i just decided to get more breakfast bowls, at least it was only a 25 minute wait if you were the first person in the place. We ate at la Parisian that night and were the first people in the restaurant. We there a little early and they, rather pointedly and rudely, told us to wait outside as they weren't open. Here's the thing, many places don't have any indication of if they are open or not, no hours, no little open or closed sign, they all rely on the resort app, which was non functional for our entire group the whole dang time. So after being banished from the nice AC and waiting area for 20 minutes, we ended up having a decent dinner except for one part. The bane of anyone with allergies, hidden ingredients. The thing that is proudly displayed everywhere on their website is that they cater to folks with allergies. But that doesn't help when I say hey I am allergic to legumes, things like beans and peas, (it's a list composed of things in pods), and because I don't know French I don't know to specifically call out green beans or to look for gosh darn green beans literally under the mashed potatoes. So I was saddled with trying to recall if any of my bites of mashed potatoes and pork had anything extra included. Nothing was said about my allergies to me at all, so I had no clue if my allergies were communicated or understood. So I played it safe and took some Benadryl to sleep in my humid and warm room that i still couldn't turn down the AC for. The next day was spent on a catamaran, I had a good time because I absolutely love every single second I spend on a sailing boat. They took us to a heavily silted up shipping lane to see a ship wreck and to try and find turtles. When we got back to the resort we had a wonderful dinner at kimonos where I got my one and only quick main course. Was it good? Yeah the teppanyaki is good, if they used that much butter and it was bad it would be quite impressive. For 10 people there had to have been 2-3 lbs of butter, in addition to oil. The next day I enjoyed more wellness bowls since and we dined at schooners. 3 things happened at this restaurant that just blew my mind in a bad way. First, I specifically called out some allergies that i had to chick peas and other legumes and was promptly given some hummus with the starting bread. Okay the server is clueless, gotta order the safest thing on the menu because I'm not dying on a vacation until I'm in my 80s thank you very much. But while I wait to order, a group members butler took our drink order. The butler is not our server, they are completely different and they are awesome. They are the only reason I got any type of drink at schooners. The server was busy pouring booze to the other table members but not me. I have been sober for 8 years and don't want that stuff. But when my diet coke ran out after the bread course, and my water bottle ran out mid way through my fish and clams he still hadn't taken a single order for my drink. So I grabbed my drink and after a bathroom stop I decided to get myself a new drink at the nearest bar. Lo and behold the server was at this bar chatting up the bartender. He looked at me with my empty glass in hand, he asked me what i wanted and proceeded to yell at the bartender to get my diet coke asap in bajan. So she dumps my lime in the trash, takes a lowball that is already filled with something, maybe diet coke, and dumps it in my glass. She hands it to the server and he hands it to me and he goes back to talking to her. I awkwardly go back to my table terrified to take a drink of this thing. Yeah being sober means NOT drinking mystery things. The next day i had to throw out my wellness bowl because it came with mystery nutty granola (that i didn't eat) and my wife and I just decided to play it safe at the british pub for dinner. Bangers, mash, and chips for me taking 30 min to get out. Quickest sit down dining experience of the trip 100%, thank god for british pub standards across the world, they always come through. But the standards of the bowling alley are a different story. You are greeted by someone who clearly has been given this duty as punishment and you are treated with disdain. You are handed shoes that have caked on muck on the bottom, they are supposed to slide, but they had enough grip to go walking across ice. The lanes themselves are clearly not kept up to any standard either. The lanes have to have at least 1% oil left because the bowling balls have a liberal layer of oil on them. But otherwise the lane hasn't been kept up in a while. The place smells like shoe sanitizer but they do have great bar service for folks who drink and they did keep my diet coke at least somewhat topped up. After bowling, I would be leaving the next day poorer, disappointed, and determined never to visit another sandals again. My experience was no where near worth what we paid. Not even close. TLDRBAD: Waited overly long for everything that wasn't self service. Overall lack of care for allergies but an expression of care. Small "fine dinning" portions with bad execution. Can't change the AC. No explanation for newbies. You are a tourist not a guest to most staff. Island time to the extreme. TLDRGOOD: The butlers are amazing. The landscaping is fantastic, the pools and walkways are kept immaculate. the pools are amazing. The security is awesome. The booze always flows. Some people (1/4) treat you how you should be treated at a $800+ a night resort. TLDRREALBAD: The worst part was feeling like a burden or a nuisance to the staff.

We had an amazing time here! It was a little disappointing that there was so much sargassum at the resort but they did shuttle us to a beautiful beach and gave us a car with $40 USD = $80 Barbados money. Zebe the bartender at the swim up bar, our cleaning ladies Rhonda and Polly, and Glendor whom is a waitress at Italian and seafood resturants, and the security guards were absolutely amazing and made the experience so much better. The food was delicious. We came with 2 other couples which it was their first time at Sandals and they had an awesome time as well. Just will not book again during when the seaweed is a problem, which is during summer months.

Our chef Jaden and our server Chante at Barbados Kimonos were amazing and made us feel so comfortable! They were extremely attentive, fun, and beyond kind. I appreciate their generosity and social interactions. I will definitely be returning to this location!

Beautiful resort and landscaping. Highly recommend swim up room 10/10. Food was good 8.5/10. Bars had very limited beer options 6/10. Enjoyed the onsite chickens and cats around the resort. We did not see any monkeys onsite at the resort.

Raphaela, Rachel and Rashida were our triumvirate of butlers here at Sandals Barbados. We had everything we needed and wanted and felt that nothing was an inconvenience for them.